Fed Economist in Total Retreat: Is It Because of an Even More Embarassing Post?

by Robert Wenzel
Economic Policy Journal

Recently by Robert Wenzel: Robert Reich's Developing Plan to Co-Opt the Tea Party

Fed Economist Stephen Williamson after taunting me has retreated to the safe haven of discussion amongst his fellow Federal Reserve economists.

In sanctimonious style, after his colleague at the Fed, David Andolfatto, called Ron Paul a pinhead and said Ron Paul's argument was stupid, after Williamson taunted me, after I replied to his email taunt by sending him a copy of my reply along with the sentence "Bring it on!" to which he replied in an email to me: "Sure, you cheap thug", he now writes:

I have just had an experience where two groups of readers met each other, neither appreciated what the other group was up to, and nothing of value got accomplished. So I deleted that post, and wrote it off to experience.

Actually, I think a lot got accomplished. Two Federal Reserve economists were exposed for their sloppy thinking. To this day, although they have taunted me and called me a cheap thug, they have not responded to my arguments against their analysis.

David Andolfatto, Vice President in the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, has still not responded to my argument against his point that a 95% decline in the value of the dollar was not harmful. I wrote:

That's it, the beginning and end of Andolfatto's Fed defense of destroying 95% of the value of the dollar. It all works out in the end, says Andolfatto. But, please, Mr. Andolfatto explain to me how this works out for someone who has been a careful saver of his money and now sees the purchasing power of that money destroyed? Please explain to me how this works out for a retired person on a fixed income who sees the declining purchasing power of that income? Please explain to me how this works out for the rest of the country when Wall Street bankers are the first to get their hands on newly printed Fed money, so that they can bid up all kinds of prices, including rents on apartments, which makes it difficult for anyone but a Wall Streeter to afford to live in Manhattan?

These damages, Mr. Andolfatto, you somehow don't see and even think Ron Paul is stupid and a pinhead for raising questions about them.

Now, it's not a case that Andolfatto hasn't seen my post or thought the post not worthy of reply. He wrote to me in an email:

You ask some good questions in your post and I'll do my best to address them.

Perhaps, we will hear from him down the road with a reply.

Read the rest of the article

March 19, 2011

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